Speaking of bad design, who thought it was a good idea to blink the labels in the animation, immediately after saying half of people asked knew none of the symbols?
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Laundry symbols make no sense
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Re: Laundry symbols make no sense
#72Speaking of bad design, who thought it was a good idea to blink the labels in the animation, immediately after saying half of people asked knew none of the symbols?
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Re: Laundry symbols make no sense
#73Labels are dated, please forget making the icons better.
According to Statista, 80% of the world’s population owns a smartphone. Just add a link to the instructions and have translations in plain language that are standardized; that is manufactures/brands just reuse the standard types of instructions that are relevant.
Re: Laundry symbols make no sense
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think they are a lot more intuitive than the old ones, but I'd need to look up some stuff. I don't know what's the difference between normal, perm press and delicate for example. Or why the 3 knobs on the washing machine should represent it The flask for bleach, and the drying symbols are much clearer though. The detail in some is a bit too high for some clothing tags, I'd agree on that.
Speaking of bleach though - when was the last time anyone here used bleach while washing clothes? I have never in my entire life done so.
Maybe not regularly, as bleach is quite damaging to fabric and others, but often enough to have a bottle of bleach available in laundry room
Re: Laundry symbols make no sense
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Also, while I can feel with my hand whether water is "cold," "warm," or "hot." I honestly have no idea what the actual temperature of the water in my washer is in degrees Celsius. The explicit temperatures are for machine washing, don't you just... set the washing temperature to whatever you want? If you're washing by hand, it's unlikely that you're washing above 40C, and that's if you like hurting yourself: at 50C…
My US market washing machine has settings for "hot", "warm", and "cold", but if there's a way to set temperature to a number, it is not intuitive and I am not aware of it (it may exist this is a 'digital' machine!). If it did have a way to set a wash temp to an arbitrary number, it would presumably be in F not C! I think this is typical for US washing machines? Do (eg) European washing machines instead typically have…
All washing machines I've used in the UK have a temperature selector dial. They usually offer a number of presets such as 30c, 40c, 60c and 90c.
Re: Laundry symbols make no sense
#76[deleted]
Re: Laundry symbols make no sense
#77Within a second of seeing the 'improved' ones I spot what is, to my mind at least, an immediate failure - the detail resolution is far too small. It doesn't account for the printing limitations on small fabric tags, never mind the ability of old fogeys such as myself to be able to squint that hard and actually read them. I have no idea even looking on my screen here what the difference between the first three is supp…
Yeah, also the mercury thermometer sideways?! It's counter-intuitive. That said, the new symbolism slightly improves upon the old one which is not intuitive at all. You have to learn what they mean and then they're fine. They're just not intuitive.
The water temp in the old one is expressed much more clearly than the new one.
The most significant improvement is the bleach/no bleach symbol. The rest either don't improve much or actually make things less legible.
Also, sidenote the "drying" symbol looks a bit like the hotsprings/onsen symbol --the official symbol is a little diff as it has an oval, but on roadsigns they drop the oval sometimes so it looks very similar (see U+2668)
Re: Laundry symbols make no sense
#78Within a second of seeing the 'improved' ones I spot what is, to my mind at least, an immediate failure - the detail resolution is far too small. It doesn't account for the printing limitations on small fabric tags, never mind the ability of old fogeys such as myself to be able to squint that hard and actually read them. I have no idea even looking on my screen here what the difference between the first three is supp…
I really find the idea that "having to know, or lookup stuff", as a problem, offensive.
Laundry is literally filled with things to know, outside of these symbols. Household tasks are.
I don't see labels on bleech bottles, saying not to mix it with vinegar or you could die. Yet people have done that in the wash, so why not start there?
Here's what each sane person should do, who actually takes time to look at tags. (after all if you couldn't care less, and never look at tags, what's the point?)
Print a copy of the extended tag list out, and hang it in the laundry room at home. I have a cabinet where I keep extra detergent, etc, so I taped it up on the inside of the door.
Problem sovled.
For a laundrymat, for your smartphone, download a properly formatted, for easy phone viewing version.
Done.
Non-problem, compared to expecting the entire planet to change. We don't need another standard!!
All that would happen is I'd have two standards to look at.
Re: Laundry symbols make no sense
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
My US market washing machine has settings for "hot", "warm", and "cold", but if there's a way to set temperature to a number, it is not intuitive and I am not aware of it (it may exist this is a 'digital' machine!). If it did have a way to set a wash temp to an arbitrary number, it would presumably be in F not C! I think this is typical for US washing machines? Do (eg) European washing machines instead typically have…
All washing machines I've used in the UK have a temperature selector dial. They usually offer a number of presets such as 30c, 40c, 60c and 90c.
Interesting! I don't believe that's how USA washing machines work, they usually just say "hot", "warm", and "cold".
Apparently USAians are washing machine philistines who don't need more than three temperatures and don't know what they are?
Anyway, this shows another challenge in these icons, the international diversity of washing techniques and technology.
(Edit: I found one possible answer online -- Euro washing machines may actually have water heaters built in, while American washing macchines may just use the existing house "hot water supply". So Euro machines can heat to desired temp, while American ones just have to take what they get! Why THAT was done that way, I don't know, difference in hot water heating technology choices? Euro houses don't usually have a central "hot water tank" like US has? Why THAT is would be yet another question...).
Re: Laundry symbols make no sense
#80Even if they didn't try to pack in too much detail, I still think many of the redesigned symbols are less obvious than the originals. A square with a circle in it - is that the washer or the dryer? They're both boxes with round doors for most people these days. But the tub of water - at least I know intuitively that must mean washing. Similarly a conical flask for bleach - I guess I know that's something chemical, but is it bleach or dry cleaning? Whereas a triangle is always a warning, so it's not hard to associate with the only toxic thing in the laundry room. All irons I've ever used have dots on the temperature scale, not a half-filled old school thermometer, so that's also one that doesn't need improving. I'm not saying there's no room for improvement - the wavy lines for drying are certainly better than another ambiguous box with a circle in it - but many of the originals are pretty good.